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Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Weathervane Wednesday - A Fossilized Bee

This unusual weathervane was photographed near the entrance to the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado.  We passed this weathervane and didn't understand the significance of this odd piece of art until after we saw the displays of the fossils in the visitor center.  Scroll down to see the sign for the National Park entrance.  





34 million years ago, during the Eocene period, this valley was a lush lake surrounded by sequoia trees.  A nearby volcano exploded and the volcanic ash covered the lake (similar to Pompeii) and any plants, insects, or animals were preserved in the fine layers of ash, clay and mud which became shale.  Now the lake bed is surrounded by a petrified forest of tree stumps, and the shale fossil beds have yielded many fossilized insects, fish, parts of small mammals, and plants.  

This is the famous Florissant bee

A leaf captured as a finely detailed fossil

Petrified stumps of giant sequoia trees

These layers of shale yield many fossils
from the ancient lake bed


Another petrified sequoia stump


Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument website:   https://www.nps.gov/flfo/index.htm

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument at Wikipedia:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florissant_Fossil_Beds_National_Monument

Click here to see over 400 other weathervanes featured on "Weathervane Wednesday":
https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/search/label/Weathervane%20Wednesday   

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Weathervane Wednesday - A Fossilized Bee", Nutfield Genealogy, posted October 2, 2019, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2019/10/weathervane-wednesday-fossilized-bee.html: accessed [access date]).

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